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think I was his real son.
    That was supposed to make me feel bad and it did. It hurt, but all I could think about was how I could get back at him. I didn’t say it, but I thought it.

CHAPTER 5
    We got up in the morning and it was lightning and thundering.
    “In the old days,” Pugh said, “they wouldn’t execute a man during a lightning storm. Too dangerous.”
    I looked at the fool to see if he was serious. He was.
    I saw Toon at breakfast and he looked the same. That stupid face he always wore, kind of round and wide-eyed with his hair sticking out all over his head, was looking more like a leftover pumpkin or something. The skin around his eye was yellow and blue, colors you didn’t even expect to see on a real person, and the way he was holding his face when he wastrying to eat his eggs, you could tell he was paining.
    Diego and Cobo were sitting together. Cobo was still acting like he was some kind of big-time gangsta, and Diego was sucking up.
    We finished breakfast, and Wilson said we had to wait until the girls came downstairs before we went to classes.
    “They’re getting a lecture on birth control,” he said.
    “All you got to tell them,” Pugh said, “is to stay away from these knuckleheads.”
    We went to the dayroom instead of our cells, and I knew that the cells were being inspected as soon as Wilson left us. I thought about my place. I knew it was clean, so I didn’t have anything to worry about. Anyway, you only got a demerit for dirt in your room, you didn’t drop a level.
    We were sitting around when I saw Toon go to the bathroom. Cobo snapped his fingers twice to get Diego’s attention and then pointed at Toon.
    “Diego!” I called to him. “Sit down, man.”
    Pugh looked up and then he looked at me and Diego. He knew something was happening.
    “I think I’ll get myself some coffee,” he said.
    Pugh was going to let the shit happen. He knew if I got into it, I could lose my gig at Evergreen.
    “What you got to say?” Diego asked me from across the room as soon as Pugh closed the door.
    I looked over at Play, and his eyes were dead on me, seeing what I was going to do. Diego couldn’t handle me, I knew that. He looked strong but I didn’t think he had the heart. But it wasn’t Diego making the world go round. It was Cobo.
    I went over to where he was sitting. He laid his head to one side and hooked his thumbs in his belt like I was some shorty he was watching on a playground. He was sitting on one of the folding chairs and had it tilted back. I kicked the leg and he went back onto the ground.
    Diego took a step toward me, and Play stood up and pointed at him.
    “You want him—you got me, too,” Play said.
    Cobo got to his feet, looked me up and down, and then the sucker just exploded on my ass! The sucker was hitting me with his fists, his elbows, kneeing me in my side. I was down on my knees covering up and he was pounding me on the back of my head. I was in a blind panic when I grabbed his ankle andpulled it up as hard as I could.
    He started to go down backward and reached out to grab onto something, but there wasn’t anything there. When he reached back for the floor he was all open, and I smashed his face as hard as I could. I don’t remember a lot more but I know I kept swinging. Then I felt myself going up in the air and down hard on the back of the couch, which knocked all the wind out of me. Before I could see where I was, my hand was being twisted behind me and I felt the handcuff on my wrist.
    I looked over my shoulder and it was Pugh.
    He went over to where Cobo was trying to get to his feet and gave him a straight kick right in the stomach. Then he twisted his arm behind him and handcuffed him, too. Wilson must have heard the commotion, because he came running in. I got dragged out of the dayroom and pushed into my quarters. I heard the door slam behind me and just lay on the floor, still handcuffed.
    I lay there for about an hour, maybe even two. Then Mr. Pugh,